It’s a hugely controversial topic among business people, marketers and customer service experts, what you and your company should do with “outliers”. These “outliers” are customers who have hard-to-handle problems and many times have personalities that make it even more difficult.
Many experts say that your company should be as time and resource effective as it can be and your customer service can’t be an exception from it. Spend the same amount of time with each customer and their problems. Don’t let these “outliers” take control, because it takes too much time, money and energy for your people and your company to focus on their issues.
The new approach
However, in 2017, we are in the age of social media and the increasing influence of online customer reviews. These sources substitute the traditional word-of-mouth and are way more effective. One unsatisfied customer can reach out to thousands or even millions of people in minutes. Apparently, it has become an expectation to not only have our say but also reverberate it to a huge crowd. Nowadays, no one and nothing stays hidden. No unhappy customer stays in the dark without having a say. For these reasons, the aforementioned approach is outdated.
Big marketing gurus, such as Gary Vaynerchuk, confesses a different belief. I really like one of his stories about “care marketing”. He had a liquor store in 2001 in New Jersey, and on a memorable December 23, the whole state was hit by a heavy snowstorm. This was the busiest day of the year, as in every year. They were packing all day and started shipping when an old lady called them because she hadn’t received the case of wine she’d ordered.
On this busy day, they earned around $40K every single hour, and this lady was outraged over her $45 order. She was shouting into the phone, “My family needs it for our Christmas dinner!” After figuring out what had happened, Gary grabbed the wine, hopped into the car and drove more than one hour in the blizzard.
The old lady opened the door and expressed her gratitude with a quick and quiet, “Thanks”. Everyone at the company was pissed off because they felt it was a waste of time on that busy day. Obviously, it wasn’t the best option to do rationally. This more than two-hour-long trip didn’t put a significant amount of money on the table. But it did more in the long-term. It laid down the bricks of the company’s future culture toward its customers.
These “outliers” are not only statistics but also real people. Real people who can trumpet their satisfaction or unhappiness.
Everyone is in customer service
As Jason Wesbecher says in this article, we are all marketing and we are all customer service. Traditional companies, and it’s even truer for big corporations, are strictly separated into different departments: product management, finance, marketing, sales, customer service and so on. Managers and C-level executives think that every department specializes in their own things and only the appropriate departments communicate with the customers.
You may think it’s true, while this is not really the case these days. Each and every department should take care of the customers. If the product management doesn’t listen to the feedback of customers, or the marketing team creates a brand without considering people’s emotions toward the company, this business is destined to bankrupt in a short time period.
People remember human interactions today, and it’s even true in the online world. So, improve on these interactions, and train all of your employees to think about their customers every single minute of their workday. This care is what makes businesses successful in 2017.
Let me show a great example: At Wiremo, this is why we created Wiremo Triggers you can interact with customers immediately. When someone leave a bad review with a low rating (1 or 2 stars), you can ask them about the problem instantly. So, you can initiate a conversation with the reviewer and take care of him and fix any issue.
If you are ready to improve on your interactions and show care to your customers, try a review service such as Wiremo now.
